


Voices from the Water

by stuffbyshelbyfics



Series: Witchy Pines [9]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Sirens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 19:18:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14879652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuffbyshelbyfics/pseuds/stuffbyshelbyfics
Summary: Ford has an unexpected visitor.





	Voices from the Water

Stanford Pines adjusted his glasses and straightened up in his chair for what felt like the thousandth time. His headphones had slipped off onto his desk, which was probably why he’d woken up faster than the other times this had occurred. Sighing, he took the recording back to the beginning and started to look over the notes he’d taken.

Due to the hypnotic nature of siren song, his scribblings were slightly on the incoherent side. The glimmers of lyrics could only be seen if he unfocused his gaze and squinted as he endeavored to understand his own handwriting, but nevertheless, they were there. He’d already scrawled out the tune while he and Stanley were at sea, and despite the notes’ frantic illegibility, there was a chance of him having the semblance of a complete song.

He’d wanted to learn more about the mythical sirens and their entrancing music ever since he and his brother had sailed past that eerily calm island, one fateful day. Once they had ascertained the source of the mysterious presence that was scrambling their satellite poles and making their compasses spin out of control, he’d convinced Stan to tie him to the mast with a recording device secured beside him. He could still recall the flutters of anticipation and nerves as Stan, with his ears safely covered with noise-cancelling headphones, took their boat nearer and nearer to the rocky shore, unaware of what Ford was about to undergo for the sake of research.

He rubbed his temples, lost in thought. Memories of that day were mostly a fuzzy blur, but one thing that stuck out from the haze was how hard he’d strained against the ropes that had held him to the mast. The self-induced pressure had left imprints of his sweater pattern on his skin and left his arms a slight purple hue from cutting off the circulation of blood, and it had taken about half an hour for Stan to carefully shake him back into comprehensibility. From that sound sample, he’d been able to glean the beginnings of a spell that, if correctly harnessed, could sink entire ships and send countless sailors to their watery deaths. However, he’d had ideas for how it could be more safely used, and had spent a few weeks in between battling malevolent monsters and fierce seas running the recording through every scientific and magical program he could lay his hands on to try and understand its peculiarities, often falling asleep at his desk as the mesmerizing properties of the music maintained its hold on him.

At last, down in the basement of the Mystery Shack, it seemed that Ford had almost accomplished his objective. He shuffled his papers somewhat nervously, clearing his throat. He’d inadvertently chosen the best time to hold his experiment; everybody in the Shack was asleep, having dragged themselves to bed after a short but expertly strategized water gun war. He took extra care to prepare his recording program; there was no point in trying to sing a siren song to see if the results were similar enough if he couldn’t listen back to his attempt. He took several deep breaths to prepare his vocal cords for the ethereal notes he’d strived to perfect on the Stan o’ War, straightened his posture to allow his lungs to expand, opened his mouth, and began to sing.

\------------------------------------

Mabel Pines trudged dejectedly downstairs from the attic bedroom, feeling the weight of exhaustion on her small limbs. Dipper, for once, had had no problem falling asleep after the lively water battles of the day, but the solace of peaceful slumber had continuously eluded her, no matter how much she’d tried to chase it. Now her quest was to find a good enough midnight snack that would hopefully lull her speeding mind back to sleep and, failing that, a tranquil enough nature documentary to nod off to. The dark kitchen was vibrating with silence, and she padded wearily past the crooked table towards the refrigerator, where by its blinding light she attempted to discern an edible morsel from last week’s expired sushi. Disappointed with her moldering choices, she began to step quietly to the TV room -

\- And heard the singing. It wasn’t simply a sound that she was listening to, it was an almost tangible presence that wound through the air and coiled around her shoulders, and weaved through her hair and plucked the threads of her mind. Transfixed, she stood and just listened to the otherworldly voice until something inside prompted her to follow it to its source, and she tread urgently on besocked, silent feet in the direction of the vending machine, and behind it, the elevator that led to the Mystery Shack’s lowest floor.

The rusty, creaky descent seemed to stretch into hours to Mabel’s addled brain, and when the doors finally slid open into the cavernous basement, she rushed out, still trying not to make any noise that could disrupt the wonderful music, and tottered towards the back corner of the renovated space that had once held the Universe Portal. She could dimly see her Grunkle Ford, sitting at a warmly lit desk strewn with papers, and currently the center of her aqua-tinted universe. She crept closer and stood still, drinking in the entrancing words spilling from his throat.

“Είναι ευχαριστημένος από κάθε σημείωμα μωρών, όπως το μέλι που δένει από το λαιμό της και από το δικό μου - Oh! Good evening, Mabel. I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come - Oh. Uh oh.”

Mabel blinked and stumbled slightly, snapping back to reality with a small gasp. There was a brief, embarrassed silence as they both got their bearings, and then Mabel’s shocked expression quickly morphed into one of delight.

“Grunkle Ford, that was _amazing!_ ” she squealed, squishing her cheeks with her hands. “How’d you do that?”

Her great uncle scratched his head bashfully. “It’s an ancient Greek siren song,” he began to explain. “I was testing some of the properties of the lyrics, and I appeared to have drawn you down here by accident. Did I wake you up? I’m terribly sorry - ”

“No, it’s okay! I came downstairs to find a snack and I heard someone singing, and I just… it felt like there was warm, fluffy wool in my mind or something, telling me where to go. It was cool!”

Ford chuckled with relief, leaning back in his chair while rubbing his stubble. “Why’d you want something to eat? It’s awfully late,” he asked.

Mabel’s face fell. “I couldn’t sleep,” she sighed wearily, “I was hoping I could calm my dumb brain down with food and TV, but I don’t think it would have worked anyway.” 

Her great uncle’s eyes suddenly lit up. “Why don’t I sing you to sleep? We’ve already seen that it works, and it’ll be even easier this time, because of the post-hypnotic wavelengths in the sound waves. In fact, the neurons in your brain should already be responding to the mesmeric stream - ”

“Alright, alright,” Mabel laughed, hopping into his lap, “Enough with the nerd talk, let’s do it.”

Stanford wrapped his arms around her and held her close to his chest, taking more deep breaths. She held her ear to his sweater and heard his heartbeat, a dull thumping that seemed to fill the vast space of the basement. With one more inhale, he began to sing again, and Mabel soon felt her eyes becoming heavier and heavier as the luscious notes looped around the two of them. In her mind’s eye she could glimpse bright blue seas and grassy coasts, the warm sunlight masking the water’s chill, and as she closed her eyes she could see the picture clearer, as if in a dream. Ford’s deep, smooth voice carried her nearer to the idyllic meadows on the island and deposited her on the soft grass, and the knowledge arrived in her mind that there were strangers here who loved her, who would take care of her. She could feel them drawing closer as she dropped further into the deep sleep that Ford was conjuring, and instead of the primal fear the sailors of ancient shores had known, she felt only returning affection for these unnerving, alluring creatures.

Stanford carefully carried his great-niece back upstairs, through the kitchen and back up the rickety stairs to the attic. The song he’d sung to her should keep her happily asleep through the night, and he left a gentle kiss on her forehead as he tucked her into her still-warm bed. Then, he returned to the basement, where more windows into the world of the archaic supernatural awaited him.

**Author's Note:**

> ford's singing in greek in this fic - it's supposed to be a couple of lines of the sirens' song from the fitzgerald translation of the odyssey, but if you put it through google translate it just comes out as garbled nonsense, so don't do that and just take my word for it :')


End file.
